I was not highlighting a problem. Does the game need more players? Yes. Does it need anybody and everybody? Hell no. My point is, the game isn’t for everyone. It is, in fact, only for a niche group of people. The sad fact is, you have to turn EVE into another themepark ride for it to really appeal to more people. All this F2P stuff was did was open the door to those people. It won’t and can never change their attitude. All you can do is change the game, and changing the game to a degree that would make it appeal to the instant-gratification crowd would essentially make it not EVE anymore. EVE would die, in all but name.
The game itself is a filter. The people who are filtered out early are the people who were never going to stick around anyway, regardless of what you do. It’s the ones who are leaving after being here years that you gotta pay attention to. The game’s population problem has always been long-term retention. New people have been subbing accounts every day, ever since the game launched, and even before it became a free experience.
Remial, you basically stated what i see as problem. Eve is for a niche group, and i feel like ccp tries to get people in the game that wont last anyways unless you change the whole thing. And i got the feel the current experience for new players that WOULD last in eve is bad, and in the other hand, it attracts people who wont last here anyways.
I tried to make it as clear as possible with my exceptional long start: At some point, as a new player, i would probably go away and uninstall the game, because it feels like the devs somehow abandoned it and want me to buy plex or grind some missions, go mine or pvp. Thats not true, the truth is a game i would enjoy for years, ofcourse.
In short: I think players who like the experience they first make in eve wont last long. And i think those who last long wont like the first experience currently. And only a very small group of people, who either like both or just get over the start and then finding out what makes eve great, keeps playing.
I honestly can not answer this particular question, because there is no brain reset. I can’t think and feel like a newbie anymore. I can only guess about that What If …
Uhm, have you looked at the player numbers in recent months? They are continuosly going down. The boost from the F2P expansion is almost gone. Going F2P is usually the last thing a MMO can do to boost its popularity. I have seen several MMOs close after the change to F2P failed to give them a long term boost in poularitity. (I dont think CCP will shut down the servers anytime soon, but they stop making expansions and big changes if popularity/revenue drops too much.)
CCP revenues are up at the moment because they are squeezing every Dollar out of the existing playerbase. There are thousands of SP accounts these days - CCP earns 2-3 more with an SP farm account (948 PLEX) than with a regular account (300 - 500 PLEX).
Also the weather changed and the days on the northern hemisphere became longer than the “last recent months” too. They call it “summer”. According to historic records this is happening every year.
I dont want to get this an eve is dying thread. Saying eve dies in a “server down” way would include to say" “ccp wont ever change it for the good in the future”, which may be the case.
When in the first 12 years of eve someone claimed eve is dying, he did so even though it was an onward trend. Thats a huge difference, remember that.
I dont think eve is dying in a “ccp shuts the server down” way, btw. They just created new forums, surely not if they expected the game to last only another year.
I want to make clear: Im not saying “eve is dying because its so bad wololo”. Im saying the current experience you make as a newbie drafts off players that actually would like to play and attracts players that wont last long.
Yeah, thats why i showed a graph that is viewable since release. So, my statement regarding player numbers is referring to either summer vs summer or winter vs winter, etc. As a fact: this is the lowest summer player count we had since 2008 or something. Im not saying in my ultimate bittervetiness i can analyze why this is the case with ease, but i can try and show what i think.
Well, as i stated ccp would probably have to shut the servers down before i stop playing.
That does not mean i want to ignore everything. Im not saying ccp does everything wrong. But looking at the player numbers and my personal feeling, i think many already did the step and just… went away.
And thats sad. Because i think at this point its still a great game. A great game which, in my personal opinion, has very much suffered “collateral damage” from ideas of the developers.
The new NPE sets you up for a huge disappointment afterwards. After taking out a carrier (or w/e capital it was) while fighting off a few drifers, you get pointed towards…the career missions (shooting NPC rookie ships) or the SOE arc (shooting NPC rookie ships and drones).
The NPE is a fun story, just not representative of the vast majority of EVE playtime.
I don’t think the NPE is necessarily meant to “represent” the majority of EVE playtime but rather is designed to primarily get a new player used to the mechanics of the game, thus leaving the extensive exploration of EVE’s elements untouched for the player to find out for him/herself post-tutorial.
Yes, thats what ccp intended to do. Imho thats just not what happens. What happens is that you get… well, i tried to explain in my long initial post. For me, a person who would probably quit only if the servers shut down, eve seems the right game. And still i think, as a new player, i would not get the hang of it.
Honestly, my ideal tutorial would contain getting blapped and then thrown into the game, finding out how things work. Try to survive this time.
Mostly-solo players will look at game mechanics (the game’s complexity is richer now than it was in the beginning), how easy it is to get some starting capital (it’s much easier now), and whether it’s possible to transfer ISK, ships, and skillpoints (couldn’t transfer skill points before), and people will either easily / repeatedly restart, because they like the early game, or won’t restart because they want to keep the wealth they’ve accumulated thus far.
Group / alliance players - if you’ve had years of fun with your buddies in Goonswarm or BNI, or Pandemic or whatever, and all of them are still logging in and socializing as much as before, you wouldn’t want to “restart” that experience, have to introduce yourself again, fit in again, be treated as a spy again, etc. From that point of view, the game matters a lot less than the group, and people don’t switch groups once they find one that makes them feel welcome.
